Ocean Energy Turbine project aims to harness energy from the ocean

We’ve grown accustomed to seeing wind turbines peppered across open patches of land, but researchers working under Crowd Energy are eyeing a different location for generating energy: the depths of the ocean. If successful, a single 100-foot turbine could generate 13.5 megawatts of power.

The project was detailed to the folks at Livescience, with the goal being to create turbines deep in the ocean that use currents to generate power. Crowd Energy was founded by Todd Janca, who came up with the idea and discussed it in detail recently.

The turbine developed by Crowd Energy is a slowly-rotating unit with three large blades that have center-most parts composed of shutters. Depending on water flow, these shutter sections will open or close, resulting in a current rotating the blades in much the same way air works with wind turbines.

Crowdfunding is being used to fund the project, with the goal being to build a turbine with a 100-foot wingspan that could, says the developers, result in 13.5 megawatts of energy. This would greatly outpace the energy produced by wind turbines, and would power thousands of homes.